Over the past few months I railed against GM and Chrysler using US taxpayer bailout money to expand and open new plants outside of the USA. It is absurd that these companies expand outside the USA after accepting such huge amounts of US tax dollars to keep them afloat.
The problem is labor, not labor costs but labor unions. Because of the UAW purposefully cost 650 people jobs in Indiana. "Motors Liquidation Co., which was created to sell surplus GM property during the automaker’s bankruptcy, owns the facility. Without a buyer, the plant will be forced to close in October 2011. JD Norman Industries, of Addison, Ill., planned to purchase the Indianapolis Metal Center and have it continue producing fenders, hoods and other metal parts for GM. Norman also planned to bring in new orders from other automakers. " (Source) "Norman agreed to save the supplier from closure under the condition that UAW workers bring their pay closer to the industry average. The result would be a 50-percent pay reduction. That would amount to $15.50 an hour down from $29 for unskilled workers, and $24 an hour, down from $33 for skilled trade workers Employees who continued working at the plant and agreed to the reduced salary would retain GM seniority and receive a cash bonus up to $35,000. Employees who did not want to accept the pay cut would be free to transfer to other GM plants for up to two years."
All of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 23in Indiana if they choose could maintain their current pay at another GM facility. What they were voting on was whether to keep this facility open in Indiana under an agreement that would keep it competitive and pay over $30K per year for unskilled labor. It is no wonder US car makers have to move production outside of the country when base pay before taxes, health insurance, and other benefits is $60,000 per year for unskilled labor.
UAW Local 23 workers jobs were saved by the tax payers bailing out GM. Their wages were protected they could move or accept large cash bonuses. What the UAW did was slap the face of every future Indiana unskilled worker who would be happy to work for from 30 to 60 thousand dollars rather than flip burgers part time for minimum wage.
Huge areas of Detroit are a ghost town of empty factories rotting away. New manufacturing facilities in the UAW controlled Midwest are a pipedream. Nobody is building factories where they used to be. Companies are building new factories in the USA to make cars etc. They are building them and offer jobs that pay very well and have happy dedicated employees, just not in UAW controlled areas of the country.
Obviously the UAW doesn’t care future jobs or the future of manufacturing in the USA. We cannot give unskilled labor $60K per year base in pay and sell a competitively priced product. It doesn’t matter what the product is, cars or paper clips. The UAW’s position that unskilled labor must be paid $60K per year or they will force the closing of the shop is one of the a significant contributor to why unemployment is at 10% and the manufacturing sector is not expanding (especially in the Midwest).
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Obama Stimulus In Action
As I reported earlier with our government tax money we have seen both Chrysler and GM expand in Mexico, while unemployment hovers around 10%
President Obama specifically stated that if his stimulus passed that the Caterpillar Corporation would be re-hiring. He did not lie, but he did omit some facts. Caterpillar is opening a new factory; in China. http://tinyurl.com/22tqo68
Our trillion dollar of additional debt that was promised to keep unemployment under 8% has resulted in . . . . nothing! Every man woman and child in this country now is responsible for an impressively large debt and we didn’t even get so much as a thank you. The president’s attitude telling the people to “Buck Up” while he enjoys eight vacations so far this year and chases business off to China and Mexico is insolent at best.
We must get rid of the Political class in Washington. They have become some sort of “elite” who think that they know best how we should live our lives and what to do with our money. While campaigning for a different Barry in 1964, Ronald Reagan summed up the fundamental issue concerning what is going on. "This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."
Both Obamacare and the entire stimulus bills are examples of the elistist snob Obama telling all of us that he (with zero experience in business and zero executive experience in government) knows how to plan our lives. It is time to throw the political class out, they have proven to be a danger to all of us.
President Obama specifically stated that if his stimulus passed that the Caterpillar Corporation would be re-hiring. He did not lie, but he did omit some facts. Caterpillar is opening a new factory; in China. http://tinyurl.com/22tqo68
Our trillion dollar of additional debt that was promised to keep unemployment under 8% has resulted in . . . . nothing! Every man woman and child in this country now is responsible for an impressively large debt and we didn’t even get so much as a thank you. The president’s attitude telling the people to “Buck Up” while he enjoys eight vacations so far this year and chases business off to China and Mexico is insolent at best.
We must get rid of the Political class in Washington. They have become some sort of “elite” who think that they know best how we should live our lives and what to do with our money. While campaigning for a different Barry in 1964, Ronald Reagan summed up the fundamental issue concerning what is going on. "This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."
Both Obamacare and the entire stimulus bills are examples of the elistist snob Obama telling all of us that he (with zero experience in business and zero executive experience in government) knows how to plan our lives. It is time to throw the political class out, they have proven to be a danger to all of us.
Questions the News has brought to Mind?
Random questions concerning liberty brought to mind by current events.
Why does Obamacare have a provision on gold purchases and sales, adding additional tax to people who choose to purchase this metal, but not steel, aluminum, etc? And what do additional taxes and the tracking of individuals who purchase gold have to do with Healthcare?
According to the FBI, the rate of murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults declined by 4.4 percent compared with the previous year. It has been widely reported that poverty increased significantly over the same time from. Since Liberals for years have been telling us that poverty causes crime, how can this be?
If polygamists were not allowed to redefine marriage to suit themselves, why should homosexuals be allowed to?
I know people who are blind or retarded but who have jobs. Please explain to me why I should have sympathy for able-bodied men begging on the streets.
Dan Quayle misspelled potato and the press forever more ridiculed him for being stupid. Candidate Obama claimed the US had more than 57 states and the press gave him a pass. Is this evidence that the liberal press is prejudice and because the president is black is not expected to demonstrate the same intellect as white politicians?
Should an individuals' economic well-being no longer determined by how much their goods and services are valued by those who pay for them, but by politicians in Washington?
Medicare is currently bankrupt, plagued with failure to pay problems, and more and more doctors are refusing to accept Medicare patients. The Heath Care Reform Act (Obamacare) will cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars over a decade, and cut the value of Medicare Advantage by an average of 27 percent by 2017. Where are they going to find doctors willing to work for less than they do now?
The State of Maryland created a special tax on rich people which they estimated would increase Maryland’s tax revenue by approximately $106 million. The results were that Maryland’s tax revenues did not go up but decreased by $257 million. Obama himself said that he knew raising taxes on the rich would not increase government revenues, but that it was about fairness not increasing revenue. Why when faced with historic evidence that raising the taxes on the rich total government revenue goes down, do liberals in government insist on saying that if they don’t raise taxes on the rich the government will lose billions of dollars?
Negotiating with a cannibal - The cannibal’s position is to consume all of you; your position is for the cannibal to consume none of you. When you refuse the cannibal’s compromise position of just letting him eat your left arm and negotiate for the rest later, he screams that you are unreasonable and won’t compromise. Why does compromising with a liberal feel like negotiating with a cannibal?
Government gets all its money by taking it from individuals. Taxes are not illegal but are collected under the threat of force. A tax cut does not mean that the government is giving money to whomever gets the tax cut, it means that the government is taking less from that person. If all people are equal with the same rights how is it just that some people are taxed at a different rate than others?
Since we can measure how much it basic consumption is necessary for each individual, and hyper-consumption is considered bad, rather than taxing production (income from products or labor sold) wouldn’t it make sense and be fair to tax everybody a percentage of what they consume over and above the basic necessities of life?
Why does Obamacare have a provision on gold purchases and sales, adding additional tax to people who choose to purchase this metal, but not steel, aluminum, etc? And what do additional taxes and the tracking of individuals who purchase gold have to do with Healthcare?
According to the FBI, the rate of murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults declined by 4.4 percent compared with the previous year. It has been widely reported that poverty increased significantly over the same time from. Since Liberals for years have been telling us that poverty causes crime, how can this be?
If polygamists were not allowed to redefine marriage to suit themselves, why should homosexuals be allowed to?
I know people who are blind or retarded but who have jobs. Please explain to me why I should have sympathy for able-bodied men begging on the streets.
Dan Quayle misspelled potato and the press forever more ridiculed him for being stupid. Candidate Obama claimed the US had more than 57 states and the press gave him a pass. Is this evidence that the liberal press is prejudice and because the president is black is not expected to demonstrate the same intellect as white politicians?
Should an individuals' economic well-being no longer determined by how much their goods and services are valued by those who pay for them, but by politicians in Washington?
Medicare is currently bankrupt, plagued with failure to pay problems, and more and more doctors are refusing to accept Medicare patients. The Heath Care Reform Act (Obamacare) will cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars over a decade, and cut the value of Medicare Advantage by an average of 27 percent by 2017. Where are they going to find doctors willing to work for less than they do now?
The State of Maryland created a special tax on rich people which they estimated would increase Maryland’s tax revenue by approximately $106 million. The results were that Maryland’s tax revenues did not go up but decreased by $257 million. Obama himself said that he knew raising taxes on the rich would not increase government revenues, but that it was about fairness not increasing revenue. Why when faced with historic evidence that raising the taxes on the rich total government revenue goes down, do liberals in government insist on saying that if they don’t raise taxes on the rich the government will lose billions of dollars?
Negotiating with a cannibal - The cannibal’s position is to consume all of you; your position is for the cannibal to consume none of you. When you refuse the cannibal’s compromise position of just letting him eat your left arm and negotiate for the rest later, he screams that you are unreasonable and won’t compromise. Why does compromising with a liberal feel like negotiating with a cannibal?
Government gets all its money by taking it from individuals. Taxes are not illegal but are collected under the threat of force. A tax cut does not mean that the government is giving money to whomever gets the tax cut, it means that the government is taking less from that person. If all people are equal with the same rights how is it just that some people are taxed at a different rate than others?
Since we can measure how much it basic consumption is necessary for each individual, and hyper-consumption is considered bad, rather than taxing production (income from products or labor sold) wouldn’t it make sense and be fair to tax everybody a percentage of what they consume over and above the basic necessities of life?
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The American People are Extremists.
According to the press and the ruling elite in Washington the American people are extremists, especially the Tea Party. To steal from Jeff Foxworthy: You might be an extremist if:
you believe that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
you believe in the rule of law
you believe in lower taxes and fiscal responsibility
you believe that people have the right to life from conception to natural death
you believe in equal protection under the law
you believe in limiting the government to its constitutional functions
you believe citizens have the right to keep and bear arms
you believe in racial colorblindness
you believe the elected legislature not the executive, judiciary, or bureaucracy have the authority to write laws
you believe in equal opportunity not equal outcome
you believe in the nondiscriminatory application of freedom of speech and expression
you believe in blind justice
It looks like if you believe in the founding principles as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights your an extremist.
It looks like if you believe in the founding principles as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights your an extremist.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Tea Party Attacks Libertarians
Tea Party has been Hijacked. Yesterday the St. Pete Times reported that “members of the tea party and the 9/12 have begun a campaign to pressure Libertarian Alex Snitker to drop out of the U.S. Senate race, fearing he will strip votes from Republican Marco Rubio.”
Snitker with very little funding is a viable candidate that has the ruling elite and mainstream press running scared. Last week when included in the Bay News 9 poll on the senate race Snitker after polling significantly better than Meek, and looking like he was competitive with Rubio and Crist, had his name changed to “Other” on the poll. Even at that the Other position polled within 4% of both Rubio and Crist and was three times as high as Meek.
The Tea Party stared out as a non-partisan grouped based on the citizens being fed up with the ruling elite and too much government specifically too much taxes hence Taxed Eanough Already Party. The Tea Party has transformed from a libertarian gathering to promote less intrusive government and celebrate our freedoms to a neo-con group promoting War in Iran, criticizing immigrants and diversity, and persecuting those with different religious views.
Now the Tea Party is actively campaigning against the one person who actually articulates the values the Tea Party claims to believe. Marco Rubio is a consummate insider Florida politician. As former speaker for the Florida House, he’s pretty much the anointed GOP representative. His words and actions are not about less government but just about who is in charge of more government. Rubio concerning Obamacare is not for repealing it just tweaking it. He will not sign or talk about the 10th amendment pledge. How on earth could the principled non-partisan clearly libertarian ideology based group now actively campaign against the only candidate who espouses their values?
The only answer is that like the main stream press, the TEA Party has been hijacked by the ruling elite and will only support the GOP or Dem parties, and will work both openly and behind the scenes suppress and exclude candidates or issues that the ruling elite are not in control of. This action by the TEA Party has pretty much doomed it to be a flash in history that only lasted till the blue-bloods running the GOP and/or statists in the Democratic could get their hands on it. It looks like the behind the scenes players in the TEA Party have hijacked it and are trying to make it meaningless.
Snitker with very little funding is a viable candidate that has the ruling elite and mainstream press running scared. Last week when included in the Bay News 9 poll on the senate race Snitker after polling significantly better than Meek, and looking like he was competitive with Rubio and Crist, had his name changed to “Other” on the poll. Even at that the Other position polled within 4% of both Rubio and Crist and was three times as high as Meek.
The Tea Party stared out as a non-partisan grouped based on the citizens being fed up with the ruling elite and too much government specifically too much taxes hence Taxed Eanough Already Party. The Tea Party has transformed from a libertarian gathering to promote less intrusive government and celebrate our freedoms to a neo-con group promoting War in Iran, criticizing immigrants and diversity, and persecuting those with different religious views.
Now the Tea Party is actively campaigning against the one person who actually articulates the values the Tea Party claims to believe. Marco Rubio is a consummate insider Florida politician. As former speaker for the Florida House, he’s pretty much the anointed GOP representative. His words and actions are not about less government but just about who is in charge of more government. Rubio concerning Obamacare is not for repealing it just tweaking it. He will not sign or talk about the 10th amendment pledge. How on earth could the principled non-partisan clearly libertarian ideology based group now actively campaign against the only candidate who espouses their values?
The only answer is that like the main stream press, the TEA Party has been hijacked by the ruling elite and will only support the GOP or Dem parties, and will work both openly and behind the scenes suppress and exclude candidates or issues that the ruling elite are not in control of. This action by the TEA Party has pretty much doomed it to be a flash in history that only lasted till the blue-bloods running the GOP and/or statists in the Democratic could get their hands on it. It looks like the behind the scenes players in the TEA Party have hijacked it and are trying to make it meaningless.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Snitker Strikes Back Against NBC Debate Snub
TAMPA – Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Alex Snitker did not make the cut to be included in the nationally-televised debate scheduled this Sunday on NBC’s Meet The Press. According to NBC, Snitker did not meet their criteria for inclusion in the debate for Florida’s Senate seat, however they did not elaborate on what the exact criteria are.
Snitker, who has earned a reputation as the feisty, grassroots underdog in this race, did not take NBC’s snub lying down. Within hours of getting word that he would be excluded, the former U.S. Marine launched a fund raising drive for the purpose of buying television ad slots during Meet The Press in Florida television markets.
According to Adrian Wyllie, the campaign media director, the ad will run in several Florida markets during the Sunday show, and will claim that the debate is a “travesty of the democratic process.” Though the ad has been produced and the stations have been paid for the air time, the campaign has not yet received confirmation from the affiliates that it will air.
Snitker supporters are also planning protests outside of NBC affiliate stations in several cities across the state on Sunday. Volunteer coordinator Bev Baker said, “Even people who would not normally get involved have contacted us wanting to do something about this. They see it as an assault on free speech by the media, of all people.”
In addition, Snitker’s legal councel is planning to file an emergency motion for temporary injunction against Meet The Press in a last-ditch effort to be included in the debate. Should the injunction be granted by a judge, the debate may not air at all. Wyllie noted that further legal action may be taken if the NBC affiliates reject the TV ads.
Ilana Drimmer, the booker for Meet The Press, has said that her email inbox has been flooded with messages from Snitker supporters requesting that he be included in the debate. However, thus far, NBC has held their ground and has limited to the debate to Marco Rubio (R), Kendrick Meek (D) and Charlie Crist (NPA). Crist, however, has decided to decline the invitation.
“We are just looking for a level playing field and to have the same opportunity as the other candidates to debate this issues,” said Snitker
This is a Press Release from http://snitker2010.com
Snitker, who has earned a reputation as the feisty, grassroots underdog in this race, did not take NBC’s snub lying down. Within hours of getting word that he would be excluded, the former U.S. Marine launched a fund raising drive for the purpose of buying television ad slots during Meet The Press in Florida television markets.
According to Adrian Wyllie, the campaign media director, the ad will run in several Florida markets during the Sunday show, and will claim that the debate is a “travesty of the democratic process.” Though the ad has been produced and the stations have been paid for the air time, the campaign has not yet received confirmation from the affiliates that it will air.
Snitker supporters are also planning protests outside of NBC affiliate stations in several cities across the state on Sunday. Volunteer coordinator Bev Baker said, “Even people who would not normally get involved have contacted us wanting to do something about this. They see it as an assault on free speech by the media, of all people.”
In addition, Snitker’s legal councel is planning to file an emergency motion for temporary injunction against Meet The Press in a last-ditch effort to be included in the debate. Should the injunction be granted by a judge, the debate may not air at all. Wyllie noted that further legal action may be taken if the NBC affiliates reject the TV ads.
Ilana Drimmer, the booker for Meet The Press, has said that her email inbox has been flooded with messages from Snitker supporters requesting that he be included in the debate. However, thus far, NBC has held their ground and has limited to the debate to Marco Rubio (R), Kendrick Meek (D) and Charlie Crist (NPA). Crist, however, has decided to decline the invitation.
“We are just looking for a level playing field and to have the same opportunity as the other candidates to debate this issues,” said Snitker
This is a Press Release from http://snitker2010.com
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